my flare story

Hello everyone,
Long time no flare, but I am back and wanted to share my most recent story about my first flare hospitalization! There's lots of weird stuff in here, tell me what you think! (all symptoms listed continue to next sections)

4 weeks out - feeling tired, achey, drained. Horrible hemorrhoids and rectal pain, bright red blood on TP, BM's like oatmeal water.

2 weeks out - thought I had food poisoning after a weekend brunch and spent the afternoon throwing up (6-ish times) and feeling exhausted.

3 days out - woke up suddenly with a very sore throat, and also started to develop green/yellow vaginal discharge and red, scabby rashes on my belly button, elbow insides, and neck. I went to an urgent care clinic and had a negative strep swab so they assumed the throat issue was viral and told me to take Sudafed.

2 days out - throat was feeling better, spent the day being active outside but became exhausted by early afternoon and spent the rest of the day in bed.

doomsday - woke up feeling ok and ate my lunch at work as normal. 5 minutes later threw up twice in the restroom at work. I told my boss I had to go home and got in the car. Pulled over once to throw up 3 more times. Drove down the road another mile and pulled over again. Threw up 5-ish more times until I was just retching and coughing and producing dark green liquid. I was sweating profusely, shaking, weak, and worst of all my heart was beating extremely fast and I felt I could pass out at any moment. At this point I was on the phone with my husband but was having trouble communicating my location to him, so I hung up and called the ambulance. Then I pooped my pants, a lot!

The ambulance came and the firemen got me in and gave me a barf bag, because I was still violently retching. They inserted an IV (badly!) and started fluids. Once I got to the hospital I stopped throwing up and they cleaned me up and started tests. My pulse was 115 and I was still super sweaty, so they called that tachycardic and diaphoretic. My WBC count was 31, my blood sugar was 95, I wasn't pregnant, and I had a UTI. They pushed saline with anti-nausea something and Cipro. A CT scan revealed no bowel obstruction, but a pronounced thickening of my rectal wall. A rectal exam found no abscess and a large external (non-thrombosed) hemorrhoid.

I stayed in the hospital for 3 1/2 days with a saline drip, Cipro, Flagyl, anti-nausea pills, 2/day Canasa, and 20mg Prednisone as well as my usual Lialda doubled to 4.8g/day. Stool cultures came back negative for c-diff, rotovirus, e. coli, and salmonella. I was sent home with an additional course of Amoxycillin, continued 20mg Pred and 2/day Canasa and back to my regular dose of 2.4g/day Lialda. I'm feeling better and stronger but suffering terrible side effects from Pred (irritability, appetite, sleeplessness) and the Amoxycillin (scybalous stool). I'm also taking double my usual VSL3 dose.

Here's the weird part - my sore throat is back! It had completely gone until I finished my course of antibiotics. And now my husband has it, too.

The attending doctor on the floor speculated that my urinary tract infection jumped over to my rectum and started the flare. Its a weird explanation, but it's the only one I've got. But what's up with the sore throat? Thanks for reading my story! Any thoughts?

That sounds horrible and like you had some kind of nasty infection that swept through your whole body. I would get in touch with your GP and GI and ask them tons of questions. I would also ask to have a strep culture again. Hang in there and keep us posted.

Absolutely! Call asap and please keep us in the loop of whats happening.

Your GP should have the test results from the hospital...i suggest you get copies of all of them.

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